Page 13 of The Legend
“Yes,exactly,” he nodded. “They share a brain. Your parents share a brain.”
“That’sweird, right?”
“You know,I’ve thought that for years,” he mused with a chuckle. “Grandma thinks I’mbatshitcrazy most of the time but when I say your parentsare strange, I mean it.”
I’vealways noticed the unusual bond between them but I never thought it wasstrange. I liked it. Whenever my dad came home from a race, the smile on hisface when he would see her always made me smile. To be that in love was what Iwanted and by chance, I had found it with Lily.
I thinkgrandpa must have thought more needed to be said when he shifted his weightleaning on the center console with his elbow. His fingers flipped the lid tohis water from one finger to the next rolling it with ease. “Let me put it toyou this way kid. You know how when you slid into a corner and the back endseems to be coming around on you but that’s how you slide through and gainmomentum, right?”
“Yeah,” Imust have given him the, “What the hell?” look when he smiled.
“What getsyou through that slide and out of that drift?”
“Throttlecontrol.”
“There yougo. The right girl, that’s like having the right amount of throttle control,once you figure out throttle control in any car, you can go faster than anyother driver out there back n’ it in.”
Now thatmade perfect sense to me.
3.Bleeder Valves – Jameson
BleederValves – The valves that regulate air pressure in the tires as it heats up. Asthe tire heats, the pressure increases. To accommodate this occurring in arace, bleeder valves are put on the tires. When that pressure increases to thepsi you set them to, anything above it is released to maintain the setpressure.
There’s nopattern and no reasoning to my schedule during the racing season. Every weekit’s different and scheduled as far out as six to nine months at times. Asidefrom Sunday afternoons, who the hell knew what the next week would bring forme.
ThoughAlley keeps me incredibly organized, there is rarely any downtime once Februaryrolls around and that goes until late November. If I win the championship, mytime is then booked through December.
During theseason, and to keep with the traditions, Monday was my day. From the time Ileft the track on Sundays to Tuesday morning, it was a time for me, andsomething I needed.
I dostandard shit on Mondays. I helped out around the house and spent time withSway and the kids. I might go to the grocery store with Sway and usually thatnever ends well so we don’t do that too often anymore. Sometimes I sneak to theshop and hang out just for alone time. It’s supposed to be my time and usuallyis.
Tuesday Idevoted to media and sponsor obligations. Alley fielded most of the requestsfor appearances and scheduled them if I had time. Naturally, she and Melissaworked closely to make sure no conflicts came out though they often did.
WednesdaysI spent at the shop with Kyle Wade, my crew chief, and our team manager, TraceElliot. I met with my business manager, Melissa Childers, who used to work forSimplex. She was a great asset to our team this last year and helped keep meout of hot water. Most of my time spent at the shop is meeting with them andthen checking on our crew guys, mechanics, fabricators, and engineers. For themost part, I keep a good relationship with all of them. There is always theoccasional conflict or heated conversation but nothing that isn’t worked out bythe end of the day.
ByThursday afternoon, I’m heading to the track and getting settled into mypersonal motor coach before our race weekend begins. Friday is when practicehappens. Saturday is qualifying and last minute adjustments and thenSunday is the race. Monday is starts all over again.
Itwouldn’t be right if I told you that we, as race car drivers, gave our familiesthe attention they deserved because we didn’t. Even when we weren’t at thetrack we were living our lives mentally at the track but it’s the way it had tobe to do what we did. At home, it was difficult to be present when so much wasrequired of you at the track.
I missedanniversaries, birthdays and the birth of my daughter. I couldn’t tell sponsorsno but I could tell my family no. And I did, often.
Racing wasnumber one in my life and took everything I had. If you weren’t willing to giveup everything, you already lost the race. That’s just the way it had become inour sport.
What didit give in return?
If youlucky, winning.
It wasn’thard to shift my focus back to racing heading into Speedweek. Even after mybuddy Ryder Christensen’s death, I was focused and ready as the defendingchampion. My confidence was sky-high and I was carving out a nice place inhistory with the most wins in the series, along with the most championships.
I willadmit it was slightly difficult staying focused when I had Jimi nagging meconstantly. It seemed with all his free time now he thought of nothing but newinventive ways to annoy me.
At the endof January, they did surgery on his hip to repair a fracture he didn’t know wasthere. Apparently, all those hard hits had taken a toll on his old body. This nowput him in a wheel chair for a few months while he healed. This was both a goodthing, we could escape him easier, and a bad thing, he used it as a weapon.
Themorning before I left for Speedweeks I was forced to spend some time with himgoing over schedules for the cup team.
Thiswasn’t what I had planned for the day and couldn’t understand why Alley orMelissa weren’t helping with this.
This teamowner, though he was my dad, I was about to kill.
